Florida

Collaboration (Early Cooperation Requirement for TANF Eligibility) (Bay County)

Description/Goal

In Bay County, Florida (Panama City) early cooperation with child support is an eligibility requirement for TANF and Medicaid applicants. As a condition of eligibility, potentially eligibleTANF and Medicaid applicants must visit the Child Support Enforcement Office of the Department of Revenue and either cooperate in initiating a child support case or seek a determination of good cause not to cooperate before becoming eligible for TANF. Applicants are given a “cooperation verification” form by Department of Children and Families (DCF TANF/Medicaid) staff and informed that CSE cooperation is a condition of eligibility. After the applicant cooperates with child support, the form is signed by child support staff and given to the applicant to return to DCF as verification of CSE cooperation.

The demonstration pilot began in March 1998, by establishing Bay county as the pilot site and Seminole County as the control site. In Bay County , potentially eligibleTANF and Medicaid applicants must cooperate with CSE upfront as a condition of eligibility. In Bay county there are two DCF service centers.(There is no collocation of CSE and DCF offices.) Applicants may either call CSE to schedule an appointment at their convenience or just drop in. Many simply come to the CSE office the same day they apply for TANF or Medicaid. Drop-ins typically wait 15 to 30 minutes to be seen.

The interview affords an opportunity to garner basic information and documentation needed to commence or enforce child support and to educate the applicant about child support services. CSE interviewers explain the services offered by CSE, the benefits of establishing paternity and a child support obligation, and explain how the applicant can help to move the case forward by keeping all scheduled appointments for genetic testing and court hearings.

Immediate locate activities are started during the interview. While the applicant is there, CSE staff use online resources to attempt location of the noncustodial parent. Often, the custodial parent can provide immediate leads and can answer questions which make it possible to determine whether a person found in the online search is the noncustodial parent.

Often, the case may be referred to the attorneys almost immediately, greatly reducing the time from the IV-A referral to establishment of a paternity and/or support obligation.

In Seminole County and elsewhere in Florida (as well as in Bay County before the demonstration) a lengthy, multi-step process was used to determine CSE cooperation:

• DCF determines interim cooperation when TANF/Medicaid applicants sign the Intent to Cooperate Notice or the Intent to Claim Good Cause for Refusing to Cooperate Notice. Applicants who indicate their intent to claim good cause are provided with a good cause fact sheet.
• DCF completes the eligibility process. CSE cases for recipients of TANF and Medicaid are created and referred electronically to CSE in the Department of Revenue.
• CSE schedules an interview with the recipient of services. A second interview appointment is scheduled if the first is missed.
• If the second appointment is not kept, a Notice of Child Support Enforcement Non-cooperation is sent to the recipient of services.The notice informs the recipient of services of the consequences, and how to avoid, the consequences of CSE non-cooperation
• Sanctions are requested by CSE if the recipient of services fails to cooperate.

This process may take from two to four months before sanctions are imposed.

Results

The following benefits were identified:

• The process substantially reduced the number of sanction requests. Bay County made 26 requests for sanctions against TANF recipients for failure to cooperate with child support enforcement. This was in contrast with 366 requests in the same time in Seminole County.
• Savings on TANF payments made to recipients who never cooperate with CSE were in excess of $250,000 in Bay County in 1998. Had the new process been implemented statewide in 1998, Florida estimates the savings on TANF payments to individuals who never cooperate would have been $12.4 million.
• Bay County staff spent less than one-third the time on pre-interview and sanctioning activities than is spent by staff in comparable Seminole County. Had the process been in effect statewide, almost $1 million in staff time could have been reallocated to performance enhancing activities.
• No negative effect on customer service was found. Custodial parents have a positive view of CSE under the new as well as the old process. While waiting times were longer under the new process, CSE employees were able to spend more time with each custodial parent being interviewed. Perhaps as a result, parents have a greater understanding of the issues discussed in the interviews under the new process and receive comparable information about the cooperation process itself.
• Anecdotally, CSE staff is pleased with the process. They report increased cooperation throughout the case as a result of the new process. In addition, staff appreciates the case moving more quickly—paternity may be established or an order entered several months earlier than before – with resultant savings in TANF benefits and improvements in child support performance measures.

Two types of costs associated with the sanctioning and non-cooperation processes were considered in the study of the new process. These costs include: 1) payment of TANF benefits to recipients who never cooperate with child support efforts and eventually lose their benefits and 2) the time costs of sanctioning and non-cooperation process to CSE. Improving CSE cooperation was the goal of the demonstration. In this study, the cost savings from sanctioning Medicaid recipients were not considered given the difficulty in determining the value of Medicaid services to recipients.

Location

Bay County (Panama City), Florida, is an urban area with a medium-sized CSE service center. CSE and DCF have started extending the process statewide. The new process is being implemented in areas with large, urban service sites and remote, rural areas where public transportation is not available. This is a joint effort that is being phased in slowly with a plan to escalate until full implementation of up-front cooperation is completed.

Funding

IV-D and TANF funding covered implementation of the new process. A Special Improvement Project (SIP) grant of $25,864 from OCSE covered a project evaluation and report.

Replication Advice

Susan Mohnen, who is responsible for the project within CSE, offers the following advice:

• Establish inter-agency partnerships at both the local and state level. Ensure that each department's procedures on the new process have been written and disseminated to their staff.
• Educate TANF staff to discuss with applicants what child support will need - e.g., previous court order, financial information and in some instances, the children's birth certificates in order to make the initial child support interview most effective.
• Use the child support interview as an opportunity to educate applicants about child support services, benefits and procedures.
• Take advantage of the applicant's presence to do effective locate activities, preferably utilizing online resources.